The questions that kept popping into my head throughout the introduction of Epistemology all sounded like something along the lines of “Can certain knowledge be overlooked/ forgotten if the thinker believes the new knowledge enough?” and “Can “fake” knowledge be used as a sort of placebo to change an outcome?” Motivational-speaker inclined lil’ me finally came up with an ultimate question: Can the power of positive thinking truly affect an outcome? For example: If I KNOW that I’m terrified of rollercoasters and I have experiences under my belt that prove so, but I convince myself, I mean make myself TRULY BELIEVE that I can ride the wooden rollercoaster at the PNE no sweat, will it still be scary? It’s a puzzling topic to me because, on one hand, we’re all so full of beliefs and long-standing strong opinions about this and that, but what if we could just forget all of these fears and negative thoughts that we encompass and replace that pessimistic knowledge with confidence? Looking back at this paragraph, I can see that my question is more of a battle between the power of the mind Vs. the power of experience/memories than anything. (Changing the title of this post now.) That being said, I found a really interesting video in my exploration of the interweb machine.

The video sums up a scientific study exploring the power of thought. According to the video, studies have shown that THINKING about doing something gives a person the same reactions and works the same sensory skills of the brain (and therefore provides the same benefits) of actually physically completing the exercise. Two group of individuals practiced the piano for two hours per day for three days, only one group practiced MENTALLY (imagining themselves doing the exercise). The result was that the exact same changes took place in the brain as the group that physically sat at the piano and practiced, and at the end of the three days, both groups had the same accuracy in their piano-playing. This incredible feat of the mind made me wonder, “If the brain has so much power over what our body can physically do/improve at/respond to, and just THINKING about playing piano is almost exactly the same as practicing, would I be able to overcome all of my fears and dislikes by simply picturing myself doing -and ~enjoying~- an activity?” Would my brain react and change from the signals triggered by a positive little motivational movie that I play for myself in my head? The video has given me reason to think that the reformation of thought and reaction is completely possible, but my active learning will be the real test.